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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Hello guys! Today is kind of fun as I'm participating in the Trust Me by Romily Bernard cover reveal. I was a really big fan of the two first books in this series and can't wait to read the conclusion!

Here's a piece of the cover that should be fully out by the end of the day.

A teen escapes to a boarding school abroad and falls for a Korean pop star in this fun and fresh romantic novel in the vein of Anna and the French Kiss.

Grace Wilde is running—from the multi-million dollar mansion her record producer father bought, the famous older brother who’s topped the country music charts five years in a row, and the mother who blames her for her brother’s breakdown. Grace escapes to the farthest place from home she can think of, a boarding school in Korea, hoping for a fresh start.

She wants nothing to do with music, but when her roommate Sophie’s twin brother Jason turns out to be the newest Korean pop music superstar, Grace is thrust back into the world of fame. She can't stand Jason, whose celebrity status is only outmatched by his oversized ego, but they form a tenuous alliance for the sake of her friendship with Sophie. As the months go by and Grace adjusts to her new life in Korea, even she can't deny the sparks flying between her and the KPOP idol.

Soon, Grace realizes that her feelings for Jason threaten her promise to herself that she'll leave behind the music industry that destroyed her family. But can Grace ignore her attraction to Jason and her undeniable pull of the music she was born to write? Sweet, fun, and romantic, this young adult novel explores what it means to experience first love and discover who you really are in the process.

Review:

I had completely forgotten what the book was about by the time I started reading it, and I like how it gave me a fresh look onto the story with no expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was about a girl going to a boarding school in Korea of all places. It was actually an interesting venue and unexpected for me, but I think that makes it a cool book for people interested in Korean culture as the characters brings that up alongside Grace's journey.

Grace travelled halfway across the world to escape family drama she just wasn't ready to face. She takes this brave venture into the world, something she probably wouldn't have embarked on before due to the fact that she was linguistically inept. So fleeing home must have been for a good reason. You can tell something is off and how affected she is about the family problem from how nervous she is, how she tries to battle her anxiety by reciting periodic table elements and not talking about home a lot. She doesn't have an easy relationship with her parents, but she misses her siblings a lot. I did like that part of the story, it showed various sides of her as she went from wanting to do something that wasn't related by any means to the music industry in order to avoid the family legacy, even if she hated it. Grace is escaping, only to actually find herself, face her demons and try to make a new life starting over.

Aside from Grace, I didn't feel like the characters had much depth, and I didn't get closure on a few things by the end of the story. I'd wanted to know a lot more, and was sadly disappointed when that didn't happen. But I did enjoy myself nonetheless. It was a fun read and I love anything with cultural diversity whether in setting or characters - or both.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off.

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.

Review:

I've never honestly read a book about a person with OCD. I think watching a season of Monk was as far as I went with my knowledge of it. All I knew of it was the counting, the superstitious parts, however, I never knew it can be obsessing about anything including thoughts. It was very enlightening to get to know about a different side of it and it's inspiring me to read more about the disease. I'm glad I got around to reading this book, because maybe I'm a little OCD myself.

Samantha obsesses over things. Boys, the number three and mostly, words. Her life is very strained as she tries to hide her OCD nature from her childhood friends and everyone else around her, except she can't seem to help telling her new friend Caroline everything. She entrusts Caroline with her secrets, insecurities and habits, and in return Caroline shows her a brand new way to deal with them, and a new safe haven in The Poet's Corner at school. There she meets new people, experiences new things and her brand of crazy seems to lessen, but is it really?

I loved this book so much. It spoke to me on so many levels and I enjoyed every second of it. Granted, there were some fairly predictable parts for me, but that didn't make the story any less enjoyable, I just wanted to know more. The element of realism in the writing and plot was so incredible, which grabbed hold of my attention and kept me going until I was done with the story. I laughed, cried and thoroughly delighted in this book.

The best thing about the story is that it helps you embrace who you are no matter what. Your brand of crazy, your quirkiness, your weird habits, they're all parts of what make you special, and that no matter how abnormal you feel you are, everyone is special, we just need to understand that.

I roll my eyes. "Really, Sue? Special?"
"Very. Your brain works differently, Sam. Sometimes it does things that scare you. But it's very special, and so are you."
'Thank you." I smile at her. It's a kind thing to say. But I know where she's going here. "You're sharing this story to make me tell AJ, aren't you?"
"I'm not making you do anything. Whether or not you tell him is entirely up to you. I'm merely reminding you to embrace who you are and surround yourself with people who do the same."

"When am I going to stop making mistakes, Sue?"
Her laugh catches me off guard and I look up at her wide-eyed and confused. "Why on earth would you want to do that?" she asks.
I stare at her.
"Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You've made mistakes all your life and you're going to keep making them."
"Terrific."
"The trick is to recognize your mistakes, take what you need from them, and move on."
"I can't move on."
"You can't beat yourself up, either."

I am not personally good with poems, I really suck at them actually. But I did appreciate what the Poet's Corner stood for, why it was there and its rules. It's a great outlet for people who feel inadequate, unappreciated, and have a lot of things going on in their lives they can't control. Everyone needs and outlet, and this place where you're not judged, you're encouraged and driven into working harder and accomplishing other things. One of the best rules is that poetry is about self-expression, you cannot criticize someone's work or your own.

"I wrote this last weekend in my room. And, okay, I'm sayin' it." He pauses for dramatic effect. "This one sucks."He stands up, holds his hands in front of him, and lets the guitar fall slack so the strap catches it. He's gesturing toward himself in the go-ahead-let-me-have-it kind of way, and everyone around me starts ripping papers out of notebooks, balling them up, and chucking them at him. He laughs and keeps gesturing with his hands, silently telling them to keep it coming.I look over at Caroline. She won't make eye contact with me, so I lightly elbow pixie cut girl. "Why are they doing that?" I ask, and she comes close to my ear. "It's one of the rules. You can't criticize anyone's poetry, but especially not your own."

Everyone is allowed to feel things I guess, everyone has a particular place that inspires them or makes them feel at ease, and another thing they believe in, is that these places? They're important.

"Why do you always start by saying where you wrote your poem? Why does that matter?""Is there a place that inspires you?"I picture my room, huddled down in my sheets far past my bedtime, writing until my hand huts. It's fine, but I wouldn't call it inspirational. Then I think about the pool."Yeah."AJ looks right at me. "We think those places matter. We think they're worth sharing, you know? Because when you share them, they become part of the poem."

Anyhow, this book made me fall in love with it. It caused me pain, joy and made me laugh. It gave me goosebumps and stayed with me for days since I read it. So I definitely think it's worth the read and can't wait to get my own copy of it!